On Chest Freezers and Costco

I am getting a chest freezer.

Exciting right?

It has become a necessity. Suddenly we are really eating like a family of five. I am making mid-week runs to Stop & Shop for frozen waffles and there is no place to shove these morning-meltdown-saving disks of joy in our existing freezer.

Because of this impending arrival, I thought it best that I reup my Costco membership. We hadn't really used it as frequently in the past and if we did need a few things we were able to piggy-back on my sister's trips and get what we needed.

Oh giant potato-sack-sized bags of Doritos, how could we have ever let you go?

Saturday, I loaded up the Ladies and we headed out to run a few errands.

Let's just admit that Costco on a Saturday is a full-blown shit show. I miss those days of shopping at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, where all I had to do was battle the blue-hairs.

First stop was the customer service desk, where a very friendly customer representative must have said "welcome back" to me like six times. Hey, I appreciate it but that guy also knows I am not leaving there without blowing at least a buck fifty on toilet paper.

Next stop, pick up the cart and head through those double-doors of possibility. The good thing about Costco is that they have double kid seats in the front. This is great when you have more than one kid. Not so great when one of those kids weighs 45lbs and is like super tall. So, I put the Little Lady in first and then tried to squish the Lady into the seat next to her but the Lady's legs are too long and she is having a hard time getting her foot through the opening and the Little Lady is complaining that she is getting squeezed and it is super windy and my arms strength can only be compared to that of a jellyfish, so things aren't starting out that great.

The Lady is so tall I can't see over her.

Costco -- look out because I cannot see the end of the cart in front of me and I have no idea where anything is because we haven't been to this store in like two years.

Did I mention I didn't make any list and we aren't getting the freezer until mid-week so I am not even buying the gigantic box of like 900 waffles?

Hmmm. . . what do we need?

Is it me or are people just terribly ignorant of their surroundings? By all means, just stop right in the middle of the aisle when there are like three people with giant carts filled with bulk produce, granola bars and underwear piling up behind you.

We did need to buy a few snacks for the Lady's classroom. We also needed milk and wipes. QT is still a wee bit away from wiping his own moon and there is nothing, nothing worse than realizing that you have an almost two-year-old with poop pants and no wipes left in the house.

We took two laps around the giant playground assembled in the middle of the store. We grabbed some strawberries and some juice boxes. Loaded up on pretzels and veggie sticks. The Lady insisted that she wanted SunnyD. A product I am almost 100% sure she has never had. There was no way I was going to buy a case of SunnyD, in fact she had a better chance of me buying the purple stuff.

The Little Lady wanted mini hot dogs, something we passed by at one point, but she wasn't sure where. After three trips around the refrigerated section she found the box she had seen. Little Lady, there is no way I am buying 80 pigs in the blanket for you.  

I forgot about the magic of Costco. That feeling of possibility, the feeling that you may at some point actually need 72oz of ranch dressing, three pounds of deli meat and 182 slices of bread. The delight one feels lifting whatever they are scooping into those little muffin liners and shoving it directly into your face.

We loaded up the cart with a couple of Hanna Anderson dresses, the wipes, some school snacks and that giant bag of Doritios for dad and we headed towards the checkout. It amazes me how you can feel like you have a cart full of stuff and still feel like you didn't get enough. Should I have gotten the Vanity Fair napkins? A tub of vitagummies? Perhaps a canoe. The possibilities at that store are endless. Once that freezer comes I say bring on the pigs in the blanket, the boxes upon boxes of waffles, bring on the bulk. We welcome it.

Welcome back. Welcome back indeed.

Some Pics as Promised

Here are a few photos as promised. 

The 5 of them

Whatchu Looking At?

Bunny Gets her Face Painted

The Wild Woman

The Mad Man

The Lady in one of three dresses she has been wearing. Note the bunched up top. My husband tied a piece of ribbon around her so that the tube top wouldn't slip and the show the boobs. 

The Little Lady gets tackled by the Wild Man

Another blue-eyed beauty from MA.

The Newest Guy

Pops for Everyone!

The Lady sports some shades

The Big Guy, Bunny and the Lady at the Aquarium

The Wild Man chases the Lady at the Sock Hop

Cousins gotta hug!

On the Supermarket, No Naps and Biting Boobs

Yesterday was one of those days where I had to try and focus on the little victories.

I spent most of the morning entrenched in that dangerous dance of trying to get out of the house with a fully clothed two-and-a-half year old. We had one fairly large tantrum about getting dressed that was set off by the fact that I had picked out jeans for the Lady to wear. Jeans, to the Lady is like kryptonite. Literally, you can see her body breaking down into a jumbled mess of flesh and bones as she kicks and flails and then does the age-old slump to the floor like a sack of potatoes move, when you try to gently coax her little legs into those denim duds.

This tantrum was fairly normal, but I noticed that she started to take out her anger a bit on the Little Lady, who was all ready to go sitting peacefully in her car seat. After telling me "NO" she would run over to the car seat and hit the top of it with her hand. She never actually touched the Little Lady, but I could see that she was testing some boundaries. This little action led me to exile her in my room where she could calm down. The Lady has been having these little tantrums at least once a day and gets herself so worked up that she has started growling at me. It is always something new at my house.

Anyway, after a couple of minutes I went in to find the Lady, nude on my bed, with her little moon entirely too close to my pillow. I am hoping not to wake up with pink eye anytime soon!

I was finally able to get her dressed (in leggings--not jeans) and we left the house about 2 hours after I wanted to. I was able to bribe the Lady with riding in the shopping cart that has the car attached to the front. Are these cars akin to a petri dish filled with the most vile of all germs? Yes. Did I care at that point? No. Besides, they have Purell wipes at the entrance of the store and every time I walk in there I take about 15.

Now, I don't know if any of you have pushed these car-carts before, but due to the size of the car, the actual cart part is reduced. I then had to put the Little Lady, who had fallen asleep in her car seat, inside that much reduced cart space. I was not even able to use the top part of the cart because the seat took up basically all the space. The other problem with the car-cart is that it is top heavy. The weight of the Lady and the car actually force the front of the cart down and so I rolled into Stop & Shop on the front two wheels.

By the time we hit the deli counter, the Little Lady had woken up, but I had already slid a few things down into the nooks and crannies of available space in the cart so I didn't think it was worth it to try to get back to the car with the seat. I put her in the front of the cart, propped up the car seat and continued shopping. By the end of the trip, I had the Little Lady in the front playing with the puffs container, the Lady in the car with shampoo and Dora yogurt drinks (an impulse buy--but we had a coupon!), the car seat clicked into the end of the cart and hanging over the car and 14 Stage 2 fruits balanced on the roof.

Did I mention that there was not one tantrum, not one peep from either of the Ladies? That the Lady who usually drags her hands on the floor, stayed in her seat and besides the Dora yogurt (that I had a coupon for) didn't ask for anything that she wasn't going to get. That the Little Lady, despite only sleeping for 20 minutes and pushing lunch time--entertained herself in her maiden voyage in the front of the cart? And to top it all off--I saved $37.48 at the register. I know it isn't a ton, but I actually went in prepared to shop and it worked. I saved some cash. Ah the little victory.

I was so proud of me. I was so proud of my Ladies.

Then we got home. The Lady never took a nap. The Little Lady started biting me when I tried to nurse her. Let me be clear about this. BITING BOOBS HURTS. Now, I am not one to judge and whatever any of my readers do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is their business, but when an 8 month old with two teeth takes a nip at your tit there is nothing, NOTHING, pleasurable about it.

I forcefully told the Little Lady no. She bit me again. Then one more time. I cried. She cried. Ugh.

Luckily, both the girls were in bed sleeping by 8 pm. The Little Lady only bit me once during the last feeding before bed. I know that she is teething and that she doesn't mean to hurt me but just like trying to reason with a 2.5 year old, I have a feeling that somehow I am losing this battle!